Obamacare was a huge legal change ,we knew we were going to have to go back and fill in the holes over time. Anyone who is upset about this or thinks it is a failure of the overall program is a drooling idiot. This is a problem and it needs to be fixed and I have confidence will be.

The thing that gets me is that this means that these businesses are dumping the costs of health care for these folks on the rest of us and the Obama haters are applauding the very likely consequence is that their insurance will go up to cover that..

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Its not applauding it, its pointing out to you chalupas for the last four years that this is exactly what would happen as Obamacare started to phase in.
You libs have pushed for this day, cheered for it, and now reelected it. Well, its here finally. Krogers will not be alone, many other businesses will follow.

If we simply stopped requiring businesses to provide health insurance to their employees, this wouldn't be an issue.

Rho

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We should instead require the government to provide health insurance to its citizens.

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One of the brilliant aspects of Obamacare is that it will make health care so expensive, cumbersome and poorly administered that it will increase the attractiveness of single-payer universal gummint-provided health care.

going back and patching stuff is great. no problems from me there. but when you pass legislation that sucks it isn't an excuse to say you can fix it later. Especially if the brand of suck was predictable.

I find it funny so many in this thread see this as something new. Companies that employee a ton of minimum wage workers have been doing this for a very long time. Obamacare just gives them some cover.

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Obamacare has made it a lot worse. A lot of companies tried to strike a balance by offering partial benefits to their part time employees. By legally requiring them to do it, they changed the calculus of the problem and have forced the companies to change to defend themselves financially.

You only have so much to spend on labor, and if you are forced to increase part of it, you have to make it up somewhere.

going back and patching stuff is great. no problems from me there. but when you pass legislation that sucks it isn't an excuse to say you can fix it later. Especially if the brand of suck was predictable.

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Not only was it predictable but the suck phase was planned. Again, I provided a link already on this.

Another thing to consider. Medicaid covers health insurance for very poor folks and Obamacare will subsidize insurance for folks up to 400% of the poverty level. Someone working 28 hours a week at Krogers as an only job, depending how many kids they have, will either be covered by Medicaid or have around 90+% of their insurance premiums paid for by Obamacare.

Of course, the right will scream about socialism and moochers and the usual hate stuff, when what is going on is that businesses are dumping more and more costs onto the public.

If we don't want the government paying these costs then we have to find ways to make the private sector pay these costs. What suggestions does the right have in how to do this?

The Congressional Budget Office already covered that Groucho. Their initial projection was 6 million working poor would not be covered by aid programs to help cover Obamacare. That was current situational analysis and doesn't take in to account these recent moves by Krogers and any other employer doing the same.

The Congressional Budget Office already covered that Groucho. Their initial projection was 6 million working poor would not be covered by aid programs to help cover Obamacare. That was current situational analysis and doesn't take in to account these recent moves by Krogers and any other employer doing the same.

I find it funny so many in this thread see this as something new. Companies that employee a ton of minimum wage workers have been doing this for a very long time. Obamacare just gives them some cover.

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It's not new - that's why it was predictable. If a company hires a person for 35 hours a week at $X per hour... and some new policy now requires that they pay them X+Y if they work over 28 hours, what do you think is going to happen? It's not an excuse, it's further incentive.

Companies have been doing it forever because they will always try to cut costs - like avoiding having to pay full-time benefits. And if they don't cut costs, it's not like it's going to come out of profits or executives' paychecks... they'll just pass the costs on to consumers.

If by "they" you mean business, you are correct. Their ideal business model is to pay people as little as possible, drain them dry, and let the public sector deal with what is left.

If business was still paying a living wage with decent benefits including health care and retirement, the public sector could leave them to it. We wouldn't need SS or Obamacare or a bunch of other programs. Medicaid and food stamps and such for the truly poor and unemployable, or for brief periods between jobs.

Kroger is treating its employees like serfs and the right howls about Obamacare. The right is reversing cause and effect.

See, to a thinking person, your statement would alarm them. Unfortunately, from my POV we have actually managed to pass the point where we can expect people to think critically about statements such as yours.

Some of you need to have your eyes opened. My family spent all of the Bush years on welfare. Couldn't find a job no matter how hard we tried. We DID NOT like being on any kind of assistance. Welfare no matter what they tell you have no programs that truly help you get back to work or to even get off of welfare. WE as a family did it ourselves. We up and moved to a totally different state with absolutely nothing. We struggled, lived in a hotel for awhile. Did whatever we had to, to survive. We are the working poor you all seem to think you know. When Obama was elected our lives started to change my husband finally found a job at Kroger. He has been there for four years. While there we struggled so he could try to go back to school. We stayed off of welfare. But because Kroger initiated this new availability thing, after two years of college (at a 4.0 average) my husband had to stop or face losing his hours. He worked 40 hours a week. I do not work because of many health reasons with no health insurance. So his pay is the only income coming into our house. We live on the bare minimum. But we do it without welfare. Kroger has always had a loop hole in their contracts to prevent a 40 hour a week employee from being called full time. They work you for 11 weeks at 40 hours. Then on the 12th they cut your hours to 38. If you do not work 12 weeks straight at 40 hours a week you are not a "full-time" employee. Period. This is so they do not have to pay for family coverage. My husband has experienced this for four years. He is a good worker and loyal to the company. He goes out of his way for his fellow workers and customers. Has had numerous comments and feedback from customers telling Kroger and its management how good of an employee he is. My family is NOT scum of the earth only wanting a hand out. We are looking for that hand up. We are looking for that hope that things will continue to get better. This is NOT a rumor. Anyone working at Kroger who is NOT management had all of their hours cut to 28 hours, including my husband. His seniority does not matter. The fact that he has been there longer than his department head does not matter. The fact that he does most of his department head's work (because the guy was not properly trained) does not matter. The fact that for the past year my husband has tried to advance does not matter. The fact that he is part of numerous "teams" within the company to make the company better does not matter. You may wonder why he would be so loyal for a job that treats him this way. Well to put it bluntly; when you have nothing a penny is EVERYTHING! This new health care act that was passed should NOT be used to be able to do this to loyal employees and their families. It's not about politics like you are making it out to be. It is about humanity at its very core level. This company has the money to spend on the health care. It always has. They are not operating at any kind of loss whatsoever, before, now or in the future. They are abusing a law and taking it out on the people who made their company what it is. On Kroger payroll checks it states "This paycheck was made possible by a satisfied customer". But they fail to notice if it wasn't for those employees who struggle everyday to pay their bills and survive in this world they would not even be where they are today. We have so little compared to other people. We do not own a home. That dream may now be crushed. We only own one car. Only my husband has the bare minimum health coverage from Kroger. If one of us gets sick we are screwed. (With my medical problems I am allowed to go to the free health clinic every three months and we have to pay out of pocket for my prescriptions. I still have another year to go before I can get my full diagnosis. I have to be under “care” for 2 years with the same medical conditions in order to push medical through for me.) We cannot go back to welfare. 1. We don't want to. 2. Even if we tried to we would be denied because of new welfare reform in our area. To qualify every adult in the household has to have a job. With at least one adult working 40 hours a week. (This idea escapes me because if one was working minimum wage at 40 hours and the other was working minimum wage at even half that you would not qualify anyway) To try and get food stamps I had to go around to 50 businesses and apply and tell every manager that they had to sign this paper for welfare. Embarrassing enough as that is. Then after my 30 day period of doing this, I went back to the assistance office with my paper and still no job. I was then told I would have to work for free at the recycling place here in town 40 hours a week to get the food stamps. This is where they send criminals who are doing community service. I stood up and with my head held high I told them my dignity was not for sale and walked out. I have tried to get medical assistance for myself so maybe I could work on my health issues and be able to get back into the work force. But was denied because in the new rules; apparently your husband is responsible for your health bills. Doesn't matter how much money is made. Unless you have a child under the age of five, then the rules do not apply and you get welfare. I am not going to become a baby factory to be able to survive in this world. My husband came home from work today with this news and did he sit on his butt? NO! He started filling out every application he could think of. We aren't sitting here thinking, "Oh well tomorrow we will sign up for welfare." I just pray that there is some job out there for him. Even if it is still the same crappy pay with the same crappy health insurance as long as he can get 40 hours a week, otherwise we are going to be homeless again and have to start this process all over again. And at my age I do not think I can survive that yet again. Not to mention our credit that we have been working so hard to keep good will be ruined. As I said this is much more than just politics. I have heard some people say they will stop going to Kroger if this rumor is true. Well, it isn’t a rumor it is the truth. But what good will it do if you stop going there and not tell them why? You would only be making it worse for those employees and instead of hours being just cut; people will soon find themselves unemployed instead. Boycotting Kroger will only hurt the employees not the company. I would suggest instead writing a complaint to Kroger about how unfairly they are treating their employees but I doubt anyone will even take it seriously.Also, before any of you make any comments of how I can be “the working poor” and still have internet. I will explain how that happens. We do not have cell phones. We do not have cable. We do not have credit cards. We have a car payment, rent, electric and a gas bill. Our landlord thankfully pays for our water and trash. Our only form of “entertainment” is the internet. So it is included in our phone bill. Not to mention because I have a 16 year old son in high school, we have to have the internet so he can do homework and such. We do not go out to eat or got to the movies, this is our only “luxury”. I am so sick and tired of stereotypes. We are poor. We are NOT dumb. I am proud of us as a family. I am proud of all of the things we have; not disappointed by the things we don’t have. I am thankful that instead of being a “side line” parent that I pushed my son in education and sports scrounging up whatever money we could to try and ensure my son never has to be poor in his life. I am proud that all the effort I put into him that he is graduating high school (early) this year because I pushed him so hard. I am tired of hearing people claim the poor just sit on their asses. We work harder than any other person out there. You can claim long hours at your high paying job all you want. I would love the privilege to be able to complain about working 60 hours a week and come home to my OWN house. (Then again I would not complain about that. To me that would be a blessing) But until you walk a mile in my shoes you have no idea how truly hard we work 24 hours a day 7 days a week just to survive. When we clock out our “job” isn’t over. No one’s is. However, if you have a high paying job I can guarantee you are not trying to figure out how to pay to put food on the table. Or whatever other expense that comes up. I can guarantee you have never cried because you didn’t have money to get a new tire on the car because you just paid all the bills and you have $1 left. Forcing your husband; in the middle of winter; to walk to and from work for over a month just so you could try and save up money to get a tire. I can also guarantee that with that high paying job you have not been faced with the reality that you can only afford clothes from the Salvation Army because Walmart is too expensive. I can also guarantee you have never had to sit in front of someone and ask them for help so your son could at least have one present under the tree at Christmas. I can also guarantee that you have never sat up all night because you couldn’t sleep… crying all night… reading how uncaring and heartless people can truly be when you are trying with all of your power and might to hold your head up high just so people can drag you down. I can guarantee a lot of things. One guarantee I can make after reading all the posts here is that the only person here with empathy is me.

First and foremost I am not "mooching" off of anyone. While my husband works I do everything around the house I can. I clean and cook and take care of my family. No matter how much pain I am in I push through it even against the doctors orders. I do my part as well by saving us some money: making homemade laundry detergent, fabric softner, dish soap, my own version of windex etc. I also make crafts and try to sell them to do "anything" I can to make any kind of money to help my family out. There just isn't enough people out there buying those kind of things.

Second, there are numerous medical conditions I am being monitored for right now. Obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea, fibromyalgia, diabetes, degenerative disc disorder (can't afford the tens unit for this), depression, anxiety, bell's palsy my first episode of that was last October, and in the last three months have now lost feeling and function in half of my right hand due to some neurological disorder they have not figured out yet. Not to mention I am on cholesterol medicine because no matter what I do my "good" cholesterol (my HDL last month came it at 29) will not go up and I am sitting in the range for a heart attack to put it bluntly. Just to list a few. All of those if you look them up will not even allow you to qualify for SSI, a few together maybe but it would be a hard fight to get it. But I am not looking for SSI. I am looking for health insurance for myself so I can go to a specialist that can actually help me rather than have people poking me with needles or scanning my head every three months (CAT scan), so I could possibly get better. I am under orders not to lift anything, not to do anything strenuous, not to stand for long periods of time and no stress. The no stress one I keep being yelled at about. I don't think anyone could avoid stress. I have had these issues for years and they all have just gotten progressively worse.

As far as call centers go. Most have been outsourced. There are no call centers in my state. I used to work for an answering service and an alarm system company years ago. But they can pay people outside of the US to do that cheap. That's how I lost that job. I then decided to focus on my son. We were better off at the time and didn't need two paychecks. Little did I know what would be coming in the future. I would say the heck with it and find a state that has call centers and move there but with this whole hour cut thing there is no way we could save up to move and pay the bills. Paying the bills is going to be hard enough as it is.

One guarantee I can make after reading all the posts here is that the only person here with empathy is me.

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Having your own pity party and declaring it a party of one is not a good way to garner sympathy. As for why millions of families like yours are in this position, you can thank a century long build up of a confluence of big business, bad government, the systemic collusion of the two, and ignorant constituencies for that. There is much ignorance to go around as exampled by people who limit their blame for this mess to singular facets of the problem when the problem is incredibly large, complex and in all likelihood, beyond the point of repairs.

In any event, good luck to you and yours for dealing with whatever hurdles come your way.

I googled the first two sentences. I got IGN. The rest of the links given were to somewhat related topics. Show me the RWN blogs where this story comes from, please. I don't read them and have no idea where this is a reprint from.

I think the likely outcome is those workers will go to state run healthcare exchanges and get insurance with costs subsidized by the government. I don't think it matters what their fucktard employers do.

I think it is just a rumor right now. but companies rarely make press releases when they are going to screw people over for profit. I guess the left is in the position of pretending they don't do that now...

I googled the first two sentences. I got IGN. The rest of the links given were to somewhat related topics. Show me the RWN blogs where this story comes from, please. I don't read them and have no idea where this is a reprint from.